Wolfsword Press

Amy GuthTribune reporter

Name of press: Wolfsword Press

In what year was your press founded? We were founded and incorporated as a nonprofit press in 2008.

How many people are on your staff? At this time, the editorial staff for Wolfsword Press is me, with technical support by my husband, Mark Lupescu. Wolfsword Press does have an impressive, international advisory board that includes Nahid Rachlin, Maureen Seaton, Roy Kesey, Altaf Qadri, and 12 other renowned writers and photographers. For Conclave: A Journal of Character, however, we have a fabulous group of editors who have volunteered their time: Scott Markwell, Managing Editor Michael von Glahn, Senior Fiction Editor Leah Davidson, Poetry Editor, Rebecca Kyle, Creative Nonfiction Editor; Julie Ann Shapiro, Senior Flash Fiction Editor; Jesaka Long, Mary Anne Rooney, Karen Zabalaoui, Drama editors Karen Zabalaoui, Megan Fergus, Jarucia Jaycox Nirula, and David Stanley, Photography Editors Plus there are 25 other editors and readers who have volunteered their services to Conclave.

Tell us how your press came to be: I assembled most of my editorial team after my participation in Amazon's inaugural Breakthrough Novel Award (ABNA) in 2007. The Amazon online forum became a conclave for writers looking for camaraderie and support during the competition. After the contest ended, I kept thinking about that community and about all of these literary voices unable to find publishers. I talked with my friend, Scott Markwell, whom I first met while we were both teaching at DePaul University in Chicago, and he encouraged me to develop the idea of an independent, literary magazine. Markwell then signed on as managing editor for Conclave. Recognizing the high quality of talent among the ABNA alum, I turned to those writers to ask if they would be interested in helping me to publish a literary magazine that focused on character-driven writing. So many responded with enthusiasm that my husband and I created Wolfsword Press to publish Conclave: A Journal of Character. In April 2008, we began accepting submissions for character-driven poetry, fiction, nonfiction, dramatic excerpts, flash fiction, and photography.

What is the biggest challenge for a small press, in your opinion? The greatest challenge for small presses is finding and keeping our audience. There is so much media vying for the attention of readers these days. Online content combined with traditional books and magazines are all looking to get into the hands of readers. How do individual readers weed out what is a quality text from the hundreds of thousands of books available? It's the same question authors, musicians, and artists face today - how do we reach our audience? The larger publishers have sales teams dedicated to promote their authors. Small presses do not typically have the resources to personally sell books in bookstores, to pay for extensive advertising, to open doors the way that the big publishing houses can. It makes it difficult to compete.

What do you most enjoy about the state of the publishing industry right now? The same Internet that has created the aforementioned challenge, has also opened up a world of possibilities for small presses. I've heard it compared to the Wild West, where the bold and innovative can thrive. The Internet has democratized publishing, placing more power into the hands of individuals. Small presses need to find ways to appeal to those individuals. We are able to reach national and international readers in a way that was impossible 15 years ago. Small presses can step up to serve as filters or stewards, cultivating unique identities and voices. It's a similar phenomenon to what I experienced with the ABNA forum in 2007 - people are looking for communities. Small presses have the potential to cultivate communities of interest, centered around authors or genres, as well as shared interests. That is how we can compete and hopefully succeed.

What do you wish more people knew about your press? Our literary magazine, Conclave, is an annual print journal of character-focused writing and photography. Conclave and Wolfsword Press seek contributions centering on well-crafted and authentic characters that reveal something about human nature which is both archetypical and personal. Our second issue of Conclave: A Journal of Character will be out in April. More information about the release and release party (in Chicago) will be available on the Conclave website, conclavejournal.com.